


Best Thief in Town

by Katybug1992



Series: Tumblr Prompts [140]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, F/M, Heist, female jaden schwartz, female robert thomas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:14:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24972127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katybug1992/pseuds/Katybug1992
Summary: From the minute Gio found out that the Smithsonian Gems were going to be displayed in Calgary in their full glory, he had been trying to come up with a plan to steal them.
Relationships: Jaden Schwartz/Vladimir Tarasenko, Robert Thomas/Matthew Tkachuk, TJ Oshie/David Perron (if you squint)
Series: Tumblr Prompts [140]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1139243
Kudos: 4





	Best Thief in Town

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a quote from Once Upon A Time

From the minute Gio found out that the Smithsonian Gems were going to be displayed in Calgary in their full glory, he had been trying to come up with a plan to steal them. It would be the first successful heist of that magnitude and would cement him as a legend. The only problem was that every plan he came up with needed one thing his crew lacked - a great thief. 

Sure, his crew had good thieves, some almost close to great, but not as good as they needed to be able to pull off this job.

“I might have a suggestion,” Matthew spoke up as Gio groaned upon realizing that the latest plan still involved someone who had skills his crew didn’t possess.

“Let’s hear it?” Gio signed, sitting down in his chair and glaring at the blueprints of the exhibit hall spread out across the table.

“My girl’s in town. She’ll be here through the time the exhibit, leaving the day it does. She may help us.” Matthew responded.

“She IS the best thief currently in town.” Johnny responded cautiously. Robbi was good, but she was also part of the St. Louis crew and that could get messy.

“Best thief in ANY town, just to be clear.” Matthew amended his teammate’s statement, “She’s good Gio. She learned under Marner and she’s continuing to learn under Schwartz and O’Reilly. I’ve never met anyone as good as she is.”

“And Pietrangelo would be okay with letting us use her?” Gio replied, giving Matthew a doubtful look.

“As long as we get the pieces we want, yes,” Robbi replied as she entered the room wearing a tight, strapless dress in the St. Louis family’s signature blue color. Matthew was very proud of himself for keeping his eyes on her face and made a mental note of everyone who had their eyes glued anywhere else on her person.

She approached the table, opened the folder she was holding and handed Gio a slip of paper, “Those are the pieces we want. You guys can keep the rest.”

“These are all the jewelry pieces,” Gio looked over the list, “and the Hope Diamond.”

“Well, we do already have the plan. I was supposed to convince Matthew to bring it to you, but looks like I didn’t need to. We also have buyers for most of those people, already vetted.” Robbi replied, “Obviously, we plan on keeping some of the items. After all diamonds aren’t a girl’s only best friend. And, technically, we’re stealing the Hope Diamond BACK.”

“Back?” Gio raised an eyebrow, trying to keep the doubt out of his voice.

“Jaden stole it eight years ago, one of her first ‘professional’ jobs. The person it was sold to ended up getting arrested and - because Jaden’s one of the best - there was zero evidence that the person hadn’t committed the crime himself.” Robbi replied in that same awed voice she got when talking about her mentor, “Anyway, Vladi wanted the Hope Diamond included as a birthday gift for Jaden.”

“Isn’t the Hope Diamond cursed?” Noah asked, trying to process everything.

“Jaden did a curse breaking ritual on it last time.” Robbi shrugged, “I’ll be conducting it on all the pieces, just in case.”

“Is this plan of yours going to work?” Rittich asked, looking at her doubtfully.

Robbi gave him an impatient look and Matthew shook his head at him. It wasn’t a good idea to question anyone in St. Louis family on the efficacy of their plans. He grew up around most of those guys. He knew their success rate.

“It’s based loosely on our Louvre job last Summer.” Robbi replied.

It was her first big job and Matthew had been terrified for her. But the Mona Lisa was now safely tucked away in the Tkachuk family vault and a perfect replica - one of many of the more famous paintings the St. Louis crew had stolen - hung in the museum with no one the wiser. The others were either fenced or tucked away in individual vaults - he didn’t know all the pieces but he was pretty sure The Last Supper was in Schwartz’s vault.

Needless to say, word had gotten around the underground that St. Louis had pulled off the largest art heist in the Louvre’s history and no one knew how they did it.

“We have exact replicas of every piece in that gallery. An easy feat when you can find the exact measurements of everything online. We have an inside man working security for the Smithsonian - and not just a regular security guard. He’s the security guard for the sub-basement - the only security guard for the sub-basement.”

“Why is that important?” Sean asked, forcing himself to make eye contact with her after catching Matthew’s glare.

“Because the only reason this gallery is getting the gems is because it has the same kind of security measures as the National Archives. If you get too close to the case, or even breath on the glass wrong, the gems will all retract down into the sub-basement - where only a Smithsonian approved examiner will assess each gem to make sure nothing is wrong and that it was a false alarm.”

“And where are we going to find one of those?” Milan asked, and Matthew snorted. He had lost count of how many people underestimated his girl.

“You’re looking at her. The only one in Calgary to be exact.” Robbi replied, holding out a passport and ID she said, “Meet Maria von Stuben. She’s a lifelong Calgary resident, with a nice apartment downtown - youngest ever Smithsonian gem expert. Did her dissertation on the Hope Diamond. I have a copy of that you want to read it.”

“Seriously?” Gio asked, looking dumbfounded.

“Matty,” Johnny asked, an amazed look on his face, “I think I may be a little in love with your girlfriend.”

“Our crew has been planning this for a year. We have it so ironed out, that we can slip anyone into the other parts. Jaden and I started planning it last year when Louvre planning hit a lull. The only reason she’s not here as well is because she and Vova are on their honeymoon. In Florence.”

“They’re pulling a Heist on their honeymoon?” Matthew huffed out a laugh.

“Duh.” Robbi grinned, “Jaden doesn’t know who to plan a trip that doesn’t involve stealing something.”

“Back to the plan.” Gio cut in before Matthew could respond that he could remember various trips taken with Robbi where she planned a heist somewhere during it. She really was so much like Jaden even before the woman had taken her under her wing.

“Right. Johnny and Noah are going to be my assistants. When the alarm is triggered, the gems will descend into the lab sub-basement and the Gallery owner will call me.” Robbi started, opening her laptop and connecting it to the projector. She did a little more typing and the blueprints of the gallery were being projected on the wall, “The sub-basement has one entrance and one exit. Stone, I understand your tech guy. Your job is to make sure that we are invisible on those cameras.”

She slid a thumb across the table to Micheal, “When it’s go time, you’ll plug that into your computer. Colton spent a week cracking the firewall and month getting that programing just right. Once you get to the firewall, it will take over and all you’ll have to is loop the footage of the empty hall. Obviously, they’ll see us enter and leave in realtime, but when they go back to review the footage, they’ll see no one and the program is untraceable. For the cameras in the lab, you need to hack the livefeed and overlay the pre-record video on that flashdrive.”

“What about your security guard?” Gio asked.

“TJ’s been around long enough to know how to avoid cameras.”

“TJ…?” Gio trailed off before it dawned on him, “You got Oshie in on this?”

“The core of our crew have been together for a while and TJ was part of that core for six years.” Robbi responded like it should have been obvious, “Now, Matthew, you’re in charge of the gallery owner. Your job is to keep him out of the sub-basement. Sean, Milan, and Janny - your responsible for setting off the alarms and keeping Security distracted. How you do that is up to you. Gio and David will obviously be running command center. Petro can be patched in if you want the extra help.”

“How set is your cover?” Gio asked.

“As far as anyone’s concerned, Maria is very real. She pays taxes, has a very active social media life, has even down various gem examinations for museums across Canada.”

“How did you get the replicas past airport security?” David raised an eyebrow.

“When you fly private, you don’t have to go through Security.” Robbi responded, “The St. Louis plan will be arriving back in Calgary in a week to pick me back up, after picking up Jaden and Vladi from Toronto. Vladi didn’t want to have to deal with commercial flights longer than needed and Jaden didn’t want to charter the plan for a trans-atlantic flight.”

“So we only have a week?” Noah deadpanned.

“Why are you complaining?” Robbi rolled her eyes, “The plan is done. And all you have to do is help lug in a couple cases and look pretty.”

“And Pietrangelo’s okay with not running this himself?” David asked.

“Petro knows when to outsource. Me being seen around town wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. But our whole team coming, that would.” Robbi shrugged, snapping her laptop shut and collecting the papers, putting everything back in her bag, “Now, I believe Matthew and I have a lunch date planned.”

Matthew grinned, taking her hand and brushing his lips against the sensitive spot on her neck before leading her out of the room.

“Maybe we should just order-in,” Matthew suggested as he pulled her against him.

“Yeah?” Robbi’s eyes were sparkling mischievously, “You wanna just take me home?”

“If I had my way, neither of us would be leaving the bed for anything but food until you have to leave.” Matthew replied, biting her earlobe gently and tugging, taking pleasure in the gasp she tried to keep in.

“I want Sushi.” Robbi pushed back just a little.

“There’s a place down the block from me. We’ll go to my place, you can slip into something more comfortable while I run and get it.”

Robbi laughed, long hair falling over her shoulders as she tipped her head back, “Sounds like a plan.”

When Matthew returned, he found Robbi curled up in one of his hoodies and holding a mug of tea.

“It’s not as good as the place back home,” he said as he set the bags down and started unpacking them, “but it’s a good replacement.”

“Well, I trust you,” Robbi smiled, “After all, you’ve never let me eat subpar sushi before.”

Matthew laughed and accepted the chopsticks she held out to him.

Time with Robbi was few and far between and he made sure to live up to his promise to leave the bed as little as possible. But eventually Saturday rolled around they had to leave. Robbi headed to her cover apartment - the cover apartment that as soon as she left would be stripped bare and completely wiped down. As soon as Colton received word from her, Maria von Stuben would cease to have ever existed.

Like clockwork, she got the call from the gallery owner and she headed out, calling Petro as she got into the Johnny was using that night.

“I’m heading to the gallery now.” she stated as he answered the phone.

“Bouw, call the cleaning crew,” Petro instructed before turning his attention to her, “You got everything?”

“Yes,” Robbi nodded, “the cases are in the car. We’ll be heading straight for the hanger after the job. I’ll collect our pieces and get on the plane.”

“Be safe, Robbi, Walt would go ballistic if something happened to you.” 

“I will be. Jaden taught me well.”

“I know she did. She’s one of the best thieves I’ve ever met, but even she makes mistakes sometimes.”

“Good thing I’m the best thief in Calgary, then.”

Petro huffed out a laugh, “Vova and Jaden will be landing in five hours. They’ll be in the hanger when you get there.”

“They don’t need to be.”

“I just want to make sure the exchange goes well and to have someone there to pull you onto that plane should it go wrong.”

Johnny pulled into the underground garage and Robbi scanned her badge, the boys pulling the cart of cases.

“Maria,” TJ nodded to her with a smile, letting her into the lab.

“TJ,” Robbi grinned, “Pear sends his love.”

TJ laughed as the door closed.

“And you’re invisible,” Stone confirmed over the ear piece.

“Perfect.” Robbie responded, opening one of the cases and pulling on a pair of gloves pulled from there, “only use these gloves. You won’t risk leaving your prints on anything here.”

Over the line, she could hear Matthew chatting the gallery owner’s ear off, clearly playing a member of the Calgary elite and annoyed that security protocol was taking too long. She smiled to herself. He was very good at being annoying.

Robbi tuned out all the other noise as she quickly but carefully started replacing the pieces with the replicas her team had worked all year to create.

“Be careful,” Robbi’s voice was hard as Johnny and Noah went to help, “we can’t risk any of these breaking. We only have the one replica for each and we need to use all of them or the minute the gems go back up, we’re screwed.”

“Got it.” Johnny nodded.

“Gio, we need you to keep talking,” Noah said, “we’re blind down here.”

“We’re running camera constantly,” Gio responded, “you guys are good. Security guards that were on patrol are currently trapped on the roof. The ones in the control don’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

“Perfect.”

It took fifteen minutes, but all the gems were packed up and replaced, ready to go back into the exhibit hall.

Robbi headed over to the call back, “Security, this is Maria von Stuben, everything’s clear. It looks like it was a false alarm.”

“Don’t take those off yet.” Robbi instructed Noah as he went to remove his gloves, “Not until we’re in the car.”

TJ chose that moment to bust into the room, “We need to get you out of here. Now.”

“What’s going on?” she asked as TJ grabbed two of the cases, wearing his own set of gloves.

“Armed gunmen just busted into the gallery. It sounds like Benn’s work.” TJ ushered her out to the car and into the backseat.

The cases were loaded into the car and TJ sped them out of the garage right as the lockdown sirens started blaring.

“Shit!” Johnny cursed.

“Did everyone get out?!” Robbi demanded into her ear piece.

When everyone responded with an affirmative, she said, “Stone, release the virus now.”

“On it.” 

Yanking the earpiece out, she said, “I can’t believe Jamie Benn would be so stupid!”

“Didn’t he kidnap you once in broad daylight?” Johnny asked. 

It had been a whole thing and eventually Matthew’s dad calling was the only reason he didn’t get on a plane down to Dallas himself. It was also the first time in a long time that Jaden had shot someone. It sent a clear message not to harm the youngest member of the St. Louis crew. Because Jaden was twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag on a good day - that was the only way to explain the utter glee she took when throwing herself off of buildings on the regular.

TJ maneuvered them carefully through the city, pulling out to the private hanger thirty minutes and throwing the car into park.

“Stay put, Robbi.” TJ told her, his voice leaving no room for argument as he got out of the car, pulling his gun as he checked the perimeter and disappeared into the hanger. 

He reemerged and opened the door, helping her out and grabbing a couple cases, leading them into the hanger.

“Robbi,” Jaden smiled, and Robbi immediately ran to the older woman.

“How was Florence?” Robbi asked, hugging her mentor.

“There was a lovely Degas exhibit in one of the museums,” Jaden returned the hug and the rest of the Calgary crew entered.

“Maria von Stuben has officially been erased from existence.” Vova stated as he entered the hanger, “Benn’s little attempted robbery actually bought us time. Every police officer in the city is at that gallery.”

“Wipe the car down and send it into the river.” TJ threw the keys back to Johnny, who nodded.

“So…” Robbi siddled over to Robbi, letting Jaden and Vova oversee the divvying up of the pieces, “I won’t be be able to make it back up here for a while, probably, to be on the safe side.”

“Well, I haven’t been home in a while,” Matthew responded, looping his arms around her, “I think it’s as good a time as any.”

Robbi grinned, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him into a kiss.

“Robbi,” Jaden’s voice broke them apart, “I need you to help me with the curse-breaking ritual. Just in case.”

Robbi eagerly joined her, accepting the smoking bundle of sage and lavender and joining Jaden in reciting the well-used words (Jaden had stolen a great many formerly-cursed items).

“Okay, let’s load up,” Vova began closing the cases.

“Let’s let the men do the heavy lifting just this once.” Jaden smirked, pulling Robbi toward the plane.

Robbie threw her head back and laughed, following her mentor onto the plane. Matthew, Vova, and TJ entered the plane shortly after, each carrying two cases.

“You did good kid,” Vova ruffled her hair as he took a seat next to Jaden, TJ sliding in across the table from them.

“I learned from the best.” Robbi grinned, curling up on the couch next to Matthew as the plane started up.

“Oshie, all clear.” Matthew stated ad the plane was gaining altitude.

TJ nodded and pressed a button and out the window the hanger blew up.

“We’ll have to lie low when were get home,” Vova said, “TJ, you may need to stay in St. Louis for a couple weeks.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem.” TJ replied, “It’s been a while since Frenchie and I have seen each other.”

“I can’t believe we pulled it off.” Robbi breathed.

“Well, you ARE the best thief in town.” Matthew teased, nosing at her neck.

“Best thief in ANY town,” Robbi smirked, pulling him into a passionate kiss.

“Hey! If I can’t fuck Vova on the plan, you can’t fuck young Tkachuk.” Jaden chucked a wad of paper at them.

“Yes, mama,” Robbi grinned.

“Don’t call me that,” Jaden narrowed her eyes, “Now, get some sleep. Knowing you two, you didn’t get much this week.”

Robbi turned red but she felt sleep overcome her pretty quickly as she leaned against Matthew.


End file.
